Flex your culinary mussels. Chef James Hackney’s steamed shellfish recipe features local ale and a homemade herb butter for a savory seafood dish fit to share. For the broth base, Hackney uses a malt-forward brew from Cape Cod’s Devil’s Purse and matches the spicy marmalade notes with mustard and orange zest compound butter. Do as the chef does and opt for locally harvested bivalves to complete the Cape feast.
Details
Servings: 2
Ingredients
For the compound butter:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon tarragon, chopped
1 tabelspoon flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 tablespoon orange zest
For the mussels:
2 pounds local mussels, cleaned
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
2 large shallots, thinly sliced
1 cup Devil’s Purse Brewing Skatemouth™ Pale Ale
4 sprigs of thyme
Directions
For the compound butter:
In a bowl, stir together all ingredients. Place the mixture on plastic wrap, roll into a cylinder and chill 3 hours, or overnight.
For the mussels:
In a pan large enough to hold the mussels (and with extra room for them to open), heat the olive oil. Add the garlic and shallots and sweat until transparent.
Drop in the mussels and add the beer. Turn the heat up to high. Add the thyme, cover the pan and cook 5-10 minutes or until the mussels open up.
Add 2 tablespoons of the chilled compound butter (or as much as desired). Serve the mussels in a large bowl with baguette or crusty sour dough bread.
